Touched By The Little Touches -- Beware Free Shoe Shines At Hotels

November 1, 1986|By Calvin Trillin, Cowles Syndicate

A lot of people assume I'm the sort of person who hasn't spent much time in hotels fancy enough to concentrate on ''the little touches.'' If you came over to my house, I could show you a pile of fancy soap and miniature shampoo bottles that says otherwise. I've been around -- which is why the incident with my shoes came as such a shock.

I know those little-touches hotels. They have a terry cloth robe in each room. They deliver the morning paper. They sometimes furnish complimentary limousine service downtown, implying that they consider you the sort of person who could show up for his appointments in a limousine without causing people to point and giggle. They furnish real clothes hangers with hooks on them, implying that they may even consider you the sort of person who doesn't steal hangers.

As a little European touch, a little-touches hotel will even have your shoes shined if you leave them outside the door at night. It's the only little touch I had never taken advantage of -- although I suppose you could argue that I didn't really use the limousine service that time in Houston when I asked to be driven to a 7-Eleven to get some shaving cream and the concierge told me the limousine was busy. My reluctance to leave my shoes was based on a story I once heard: Apparently, during an official diplomatic visit to Washington some years ago, the prime minister of Finland left his shoes outside the door at Blair House and woke up the next morning to find that they had been donated to the Salvation Army.

Last week, though, when I checked into a little-touches hotel in the Southwest, the bellhop seemed particularly keen on having me leave my shoes outside the door. I inspected him closely, trying to decide if he looked like someone who might head a gang of shoe thieves that snatched old brogans, spirited them off to a garage in a dilapidated part of town, stripped them of their laces and tongues, and sent the shell to South America disguised as a 1978 Plymouth station wagon.

He didn't look the part. Also, I had decided to trust the hotel. After all, they trusted me with their hangers. Also, the terry cloth robe they had provided me -- a terry cloth robe that had a hood on it, as a little touch on the little touch -- had not even come with the usual notice warning me, in a backhanded and subtle kind of way, that I would be billed and maybe even arrested if I decided to steal it. I left my shoes outside the door -- even though, unlike the prime minister of Finland, I don't travel with an extra pair.

Early the next morning, before stepping into the shower, I opened the door a crack to get my shoes. There was nothing outside my door except the morning paper. I closed the door. Maybe it was too early. After I had taken a shower and slipped on my terry cloth robe, I opened the door again. There were, of course, shoes outside the door. They were somebody else's shoes.

Not only that: They were somebody else's gigantic shoes. They were not simply long. They were wide. They were high. A playful cocker spaniel could have hidden in either one of them. I tried to think of where I had seen such shoes before. I remembered attending a circus sideshow as a child. I was standing in front of a giant, who leaned slightly to one side, like a tree that had grown too big for its roots. I was saying to my friend Charlie, who stood next to me, ''Will you get a load of his shoes!''

I tried phoning the concierge, hoping that he wouldn't have any way of knowing that I was the guy who got turned down for the 7-Eleven run in Houston. The line was busy. I decided that I could simply find my own shoes outside another door and make the exchange. I walked down the hall with the giant's shoes in my hand, still wearing my terry cloth robe with the hood. It occurred to me that if another guest passed me in the hall he might take me for some kind of deranged and excommunicated monk on his way to conduct a shoe ritual.

It also occurred to me that if the giant spotted me I might be hard put to explain what I was doing with his shoes. He was certain to be out of sorts, having spent the night with his feet hanging 3 or 4 feet over the end of the bed. As I crept along the hall, struggling with the huge shoes, I expected any moment to hear a booming voice from behind and above me. I wondered if he would start by saying ''Fee, fi, fo, fum . . .''

I turned one corner of the hall and then another, and then I spotted my shoes. Gently I lowered the giant's shoes to the floor. Then I snatched up my shoes, raced down the hall, ran into my room and slammed the door. I thought I heard rumbling in the hall outside, but it might have been my imagination. I was safe. I had my shoes. With a feeling of great relief, I looked down at them. They were not shined. I called up the concierge and asked to be driven to a shoeshine stand. He said the limousine was busy.